


Seize the Day

by st_aurafina



Category: The Good Wife
Genre: Apocalypse, Crack, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-17
Updated: 2011-10-17
Packaged: 2017-10-24 17:10:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/265884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/st_aurafina/pseuds/st_aurafina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the cyborgs attack, Lockhart and Gardner must form a new strategy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seize the Day

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the End of the World commentficathon back in May, [here](http://thatyourefuse.dreamwidth.org/206024.html)

The cyborgs announce their existence by sending a hypnagogic pulse through the net. At Lockhart and Gardner, most of the board go face down on the table as pacemakers quietly switch themselves off. The strange swirling patterns on the television screen finish off the rest. Diane and Will, back to the screens, are left alone with drastic decisions to make about the company's future.

It's Kalinda who figures out tech is the enemy; she assigns the floor clerks and junior staff members to rip out anything with a chip in it. Door systems, cameras, phones soon lie in heaped piles on the floor. Will and Diane immediately promote her to Head of Defence, effective immediately.

When it becomes apparent, from brief radio bursts, that nuclear strike is not the intention of the cyborg army massing in the deserts of the world, Kalinda presents a survival strategy for shoring up the building. "We should stay here. Resources will most likely accumulate around population centres. And this is a good, solid building, in a defensible position. Building management shelved the environmental program last year, but not before we got some decent solar panel coverage up. The IT department is working on adapting them for power generation." She shrugs. "And you know, we're within walking distance of the river. If it comes down to it, we'll always have drinking water."

They seal the building, fortify the surrounds with SUVs, once the sat-nav and onboard computers are disabled. Kalinda assigns clerks and junior staff to take inventory, and to round up frightened staff from other companies in the building.

Diane and Will tape up the windows in the corner offices.

"I'm glad we didn't stop the water delivery service, in the end." Will bites off a long piece of tape with his teeth and passes it up.

Diane smiles grimly as she smoothes the tape along the glass. "Pity we didn't spring for the fruit baskets."

\---  
Alicia catches Kalinda's elbow in a corridor. Kalinda juggles the box of repossessed tasers and handguns, and looks at her warily. Not even a worldwide disaster can breach the gap between them now.

"I have to go and get my children." Alicia has that expression, the one means she will not bend or be moved or deviate from this cause.

Any other person, Kalinda would have slapped and told them to deal with the reality of the situation. "Alicia, I'm so sorry." Kalinda balances the box, finds a spare hand, puts it on Alicia's wrist. "You can't leave the building. We have no idea if it's safe."

"Yes, and my children are out there." Alicia's face is grim.

For a moment, Kalinda believes that Alicia can bend reality with the power of her determination. "Okay. I'll show you a way out, leave it open for an hour. Try to be back by then."

In the side street, she jimmies open a sedan, rips the Tom Tom off the windshield and pops the hood to disable the computer and get the motor running. "Stay away from the bridge, the big intersections. Remember, a car is a fortress, but it's a weapon, too. If you see something dangerous, gun the engine and run it down."

Kalinda surprises herself by throwing her arms around Alicia and squeezing her tight. "Come back quickly." This is a war, damm it. She need to be harder than this.

\---

When she moved her family to the apartment, Alicia made an evacuation plan, in case of fire or other emergencies in the building. She hopes, hopes they've remembered and adapted. Then she sees them, huddled in the alcove of the news stand outside their apartment building. Grace has a baseball bat propped on her shoulder. Zach holds a handgun low and ready with an alarming ease Alicia hopes comes from video games.

Alicia pops open the door. "Zach, put that gun down right now and get in the car!" She sounds like a soccer mom, like this is any other day after school.

"Mom!" Grace dives into the car, hauling a rucksack that clinks. She tucks the baseball bat between her knees. "We got cans of juice. Uh, it wasn't looting, they were all over the road."

Zach doesn't abandon his gun as he slides into the back seat. "Go, Mom! We should get out of the city."

"We should go and find Grandma," says Grace.

"Have you heard from your father?" It's important for the kids to know, Alicia tells herself defensively as she turns back towards work.

Grace fiddles with the top of a can of pineapple juice, apparently untroubled. "He and Mr Gold went to City Hall. Hey, did you know, Mr Gold has a cochlear implant?"

Alicia swerves around a street sweeper that careens wildly across the road. "I didn't know that." She can't imagine Eli under the control of the enemy. Or dead.

"Yeah," says Zach. His expression is more cynical than Grace's. "He's going to use it to talk to the cyborgs. He says there's going to be a power vacuum at the top and they need to move on that right now."

Alicia presses her mouth together to suppress an hysterical laugh as she drives. Eli Gold, cyborg. The world was doomed.


End file.
